


Like a Duck to Water

by non_canonical



Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: 1950s, Baking, Blood Drinking, Gen, Murder, Pre-Canon, Torture, biscuits - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/non_canonical/pseuds/non_canonical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lawyer, bloodsucker – some might say there's not much difference between the two.  Cutler wishes they were right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Duck to Water

**Author's Note:**

> _Being Human_ belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.

Nick Cutler has a list.  A list of all the things that set him apart from the vampires.  He starts compiling it the first time that he meets Dennis and Louis – no, that's not right.  The first time he meets them they kill him as surely as they just killed his wife.  They kill the old Nick Cutler, the man who had a home and someone to share it with.  The man who thought he could keep his friends, his job, a measure of his integrity.  They shatter that man in the rusty darkness of a storage room, and he still can't put all the pieces back together.  He suspects that some vital part is missing.

The second time that Cutler meets Dennis and Louis, then – at Hal's suggestion, of course – it's in that same pub, in that same barroom where everything is red: the walls, Hal's tie, the inside of Cutler's head.  And all that Cutler can see is Louis holding Rachel down while Dennis tears open her throat – or is it the other way around? Or maybe Hal was there, forcing that greedy tube into her veins.

Dennis holds out his hand, a hand that's stained with Rachel's blood, and Cutler grasps it.  He doesn't know what else to do.  And when he's shaken Dennis's hand, and Louis', he rubs his palm against his trousers as though some of that blood has smeared onto him.  It hasn't: it was there already.  It was there from the moment he stepped through the door tonight.  From the first time he stepped through that door, with the decanter luring him inside.  It was there when he opened his own front door, pale and bloodied, and lied to his wife.

Louis is sitting at the same table; Dennis is still perched on that stool at the bar.  Neither of them says a word.  Cutler fidgets with his hat and squeezes his lips shut against giddy laughter.  How terribly English, to be worrying about an awkward silence when these men killed his Rachel.  Then Hal's fingers close around his arm, and he leads him forwards and the silence breaks.

It turns out that Louis is quiet because he has nothing to say.  Who needs words, when you've got muscles and fangs, and you don't mind if the ladies are willing.  He used to work for the Messina brothers, until the vampires challenged the gangsters from control of the East End.  Louis may be dumb, but he's a survivor.  Dennis, on the other hand, only keeps quiet when Hal tells him to.  He likes the sound of his own voice as much Hal and, just like Hal, he rarely talks about himself.  Cutler doesn't even know what Dennis actually does.

When he plucks up the courage to ask Hal about it, the man tells him, "Dennis runs the dog fights."

"But I thought …" – Cutler stammers to a halt at the sight of Hal's eloquently arched eyebrow – "I thought that was just a pretext, something to get me into the cells."  The corner of Hal's mouth twists upwards, and Cutler realises just how little he knows about this man – about these men and his new life.  "You don't really run dog fights, do you?"

Hal's smile widens and splits open, revealing a row of teeth that make Cutler shudder reminiscently.  Hal's laughing.  But Dennis says nothing, just shares a look with Louis and chuckles, and Cutler doesn't know if the joke's on Dennis or on him.

And so Cutler starts compiling his list – in his head, of course: Hal's paranoia is infectious – about all the things that make him different.  All the ways he doesn't fit in: he doesn't smoke; he doesn't drink brandy.  Cutler doesn't dress like the others, either, so Hal takes him to see his own tailor.  After years of rationing, of make-do-and-mend, it feels indulgent.  Decadent.  Cutler doesn't need more suits, has plenty of wear left in the ones he owns.  It doesn't matter that they're last year's cut, or the year before's.  Rachel never minded about that sort of thing.  But he's Hal's recruit, and everything he wears – everything he says, does, drinks, kills; everything he is – reflects on his maker.  The tailor holds out a jacket, and the fabric settles on his shoulders like a heavy pair of hands.

"Now you look the part," Hal says, in a rare moment of approval.

But Cutler doesn't know what part he's expected to play, what face he needs to show to the world now.  And he can't quite remember how his old face used to look, now that the mirror sees right through him.

Cutler keeps adding to his list.  He doesn't know how to play poker – keeps losing when they teach him.  He's slow at learning how to smile and lie, and of course that earns him the inevitable lawyer jokes.  Human or vampire, some things never change.  Cutler doesn't drink whisky, and that gives Fergus one more reason to look down on him.  Fergus: always the soldier, the sort of man who bullies anyone who hasn't been to war.  Who hasn't shed enough blood.  Cutler knows the type: he's used to people trying to guess his age and thinking, maybe, he was old enough to fight.  Suspecting him of being a conchie.

"Go and get me a drink," Fergus snaps, waving the empty decanter in Cutler's direction.  

Louis is bigger than Fergus; Dennis is smarter, and he never backs down from a fight.  So Cutler is the one that Fergus shoves around – but not this time, not this.  He won't go into that storage room, where there are no carpets on the floor to show the stains, and they keep the bottles of blood on ice.  The others think it's courage, and he lets them.

Louis, Dennis and Fergus.  Tommy, Jock and Smith – new names, new faces, and Cutler has no idea who any of them are or what they do.  Where he fits into the scheme of things.  He frets himself to sleep and he wakes in a bed that's too large for one person, reaching for a warmth that's no longer there.  It pisses Fergus off no end when Hal tells him to look after the new recruit, but he does what he's told.  They all do what Hal tells them.

Cutler has to give up his job, to clear his office – well, the half an office that he shares with Jonathan.  Fergus drives him there, and he makes sure to use one of the patrol cars.  Cutler can feel eyes on him as he climbs out and he knows what they're thinking, with his fancy new clothes and a policeman for a chauffeur.  He wishes they were right, that this were only organised crime.  Cutler peeks out of the window, and finds that Fergus is parked right outside.  As though he doesn't trust him; as though he thinks that Cutler will run.  He might, if he had anywhere to run to.

But he doesn't, so Cutler stuffs his antique inkstand into his briefcase and takes his certificate down from the wall.  He picks up the photograph of Rachel from his desk.  The two of them together: the portrait they had taken after announcing the engagement.  Cutler's buttoned and starched, awkwardly formal, but Rachel simply looks happy.  Her smile's so bright it hurts to look at it, and Cutler lets the picture crash into the bin.  He's tired of the constant reminders, the constant pain.  Then he's on his knees, snatching it back out and checking whether the glass is broken.  The pain is the only thing that's truly his any more.  He tucks the photograph into his jacket – the inside pocket, nestled against his heart – and when he gets home he sets it down on the mantelpiece.

Cutler's list keeps on growing.  He doesn't enjoy gambling; he doesn't like the rattle and snarl of full moon.  He doesn't like causing pain, but Fergus does – him and that knife he always carries.  He only uses it when Hal's not around, and tonight he's making up for lost time.  The poor girl is a mess.  Cutler winces every time the metal bites into her flesh, but the waft of her blood fills the room and sets his mouth watering.  Dennis must have rummaged through the kitchen: he's watching, biscuit in hand, calmly waiting his turn.  

Cutler doesn't really like biscuits – prefers cake, when he can get it: a nice Victoria sponge.  Sunny, summer memories: Rachel, faded floral apron and floury hands; Cutler, slipping his arms around her waist and stealing a kiss.  A choking gurgle from the bed, but Cutler refuses to look.  Wet squelching, and Cutler's stomach churns.  Rachel made the best cakes.  Pastry, too: she had the cold hands for it.  Cold hands, warm heart; they used to joke about it.  Warm heart, cooling as it pumped her blood down that rubber tube.  Down his throat.  

The girl looks like something out of a butcher's pail – and the smell.  It's not just blood, now.  Cutler leans against the wall and vomits.  Then he goes home and the first thing he does, even before he cleans himself up, is to take Rachel's photo down.

Hal goes out a lot.  Business; politics.  Details he doesn't always see fit to share.  Sometimes he takes Louis with him; sometimes he takes Fergus.  Once he takes them both – and Dennis, and some of the other boys, as well – and they come back bruised and bloody and smiling.  Apparently, politics can be a messy affair.  Hal is out a lot, but when he's there Cutler tries that little bit harder.  He knows he's being watched.  Somewhere along the line, Cutler goes from being conscious of that pressure to being uncomfortable in its absence.

Then he doesn't have the time to worry, because they finally give him a chance to do what he's good at.  And Cutler discovers that it's much more fun working outside the law than working within it.  That he does, after all, have a talent for smiling and lying through his teeth.  But then, he reasons, maybe this is what he was doing all along: a solicitor has only his client's word that he's innocent.  Cutler's not bad at his new job, either.  He discovers a hundred ways to take that red tape and tie it into knots – or to sever it cleanly.  The hours are better, too.

In his free time, it's Dennis that Cutler talks to the most, sharing cups of tea while the older man picks biscuit crumbs out of his beard.  Dennis discusses Attlee's Labour government, the American involvement in Korea, and the merits of Camaree over The Flying Dutchman in the 3.15 at Newmarket.  He's never short of an opinion, and Cutler learns more about the noble art of dog fighting that he ever wanted to know.  Cutler has no idea if the man is sixty or six hundred – he's just beginning to grasp the concept of immortality, that being dead means you get to live forever.  He wonders how old Hal is.  Sometimes he'd swear that he can actually see the weight of weary centuries in the man's settled stillness.

It's Fergus who tells him about Ivan and Hettie and Wyndham.  Who warns him about Mr Snow – and that's when Cutler thinks that maybe Fergus isn't trying to further his education so much as frighten him.  But he won't believe that all of those stories are true.  It's bad enough that the Old Ones are out there.  That Hal belongs to them, belongs with them.  Cutler wonders again why Hal chose him, and just what it would take to do something inexcusable.

"This Mr Snow" – His mouth is dry; his voice comes out as a croak. – "Is he …?"

Cutler's fully aware that he sounds like an idiot, that he's giving Fergus ammunition.  But he can't say it – doesn't even want to face the thought square on: that Hal has a maker somewhere.  That Hal was made, just like him; that Hal had once been a new recruit, like him – no, not like him.  The earth wobbles dizzyingly on its axis, and Cutler's imagination fails him.

Fergus is shaking his head.  "Not Mr Snow," he says.  "Just some nobody."

"Where is he?"  Because clearly he's not here – sharing, protecting, demanding – the way that Hal is here for him.

"I killed him," Hal says.

"Terribly bad form, that," Fergus smirks.  But he's watching Hal out of the corner of his eye, afraid that he's said too much – afraid of Hal – and Cutler's world rights itself again.

"I'd outgrown him," Hal confides in him later, when they're alone.

And Cutler wonders what it would be like, not to need anyone like that, but his mind shies away from the giddy, terrifying freedom of it.  There's a whole world out there, and he's not yet ready to face it alone.  Far better to stick to the familiar dangers of trying to keep Hal Yorke happy.

He's getting better at that, and when he beats Jonathan in court – when he sees the sour defeat on the senior partner's face – he walks into the pub like a conquering hero.  Dennis nods in acknowledgement, and Fergus can't find anything to grumble about.  Even Louis gives him a pat on the back.  It shouldn't make him happy – the big lump doesn't have a clue what it is that he's achieved – but he can't help smiling.  He feels like could take on a hundred men like Hutton and win.  When they bring out the decanter for a celebratory drink, there's a bare inch of blood left in the bottom.

"I'll see to it," Cutler tells them, and he discovers that the shadowy storage room that's been festering in his nightmares is just another place where he can appease his hunger.

Cutler still has to drive past the cemetery every day.  To avoid it he'd have to travel a mile out of his way, and Hal doesn't like it when he's late.  He can see it from the road – can see it even when he isn't looking – an oblong of marble, still gleaming although the grass has grown over the mangled earth.  When he can't stand the sight of it any longer, Cutler puts their house up for sale.  He tells Hal that he's leaving it behind, that he's moving on.  He's afraid that Hal will realise the truth; he's afraid that that is the truth.  Cutler leaves his wedding ring on the mantelpiece when he moves out.

Nick Cutler still has his list, his catalogue of the things that make him different to the other vampires, but it's getting shorter every day.  
 


End file.
